1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to body part protective garments or bandages, particularly adapted for wearing on the arm, for covering and protecting the elbow of a person, from external contact and/or pressure, in the area of the nerve center of the elbow.
2. Prior Art
Body part protective garments or bandages for use on the arm or leg of a person, for covering and/or protecting a portion of the arm or the leg, such as the elbow, ankle or knee joint, for example, appear to fall into one of two general type or category; those that are of fully open construction and are essentially a wrap around garment or bandage and those that are of closed, such as tubular or modified tubular, construction and are essentially a slide-on garment or bandage.
The fully open or fully openable protective garment or bandage, which normally has some means to close the protective garment and to hold the garment closed over the area to be protected, normally requires at least two hands for positioning the protective garment on or about that portion of the arm or the leg to be protected and to hold and close the garment around the body part. The use of two hands to position, hold and close such protective garment or bandage around a body part is convenient and conducive to self-installation when the protective garment is used on the leg, such as the ankle or on the knee, for example, however, when a fully open or fully openable protective garment is used on the arm, such as on the elbow, for example, self-installation becomes a problem since two hands of the person installing the protective garment about his elbow are not available to manipulate, to hold in place and to close the protective garment.
As for the protective garments of tubular or modified tubular construction, these may be positioned on the elbow of a person using only one hand but the protective garments must be slid on to and along the surface of the skin of the arm and in sliding over the skin, the protective garment slides over the area to be protected from contact, invasion and/or pressure and the protective garment itself often commits the very act from which the garment is designed to protect the elbow.
Examples of fully open and/or fully openable protective garments or bandages for use on the arm or on the leg are taught in U.S. Pat. Nos.:
1,304,558 to Grau 1919 PA1 2,140,598 to Rhorer 1937 PA1 3,648,291 to Pankers 1972
Grau teaches an elbow shield in the form of a longitudinally open sleeve that may be pulled together by pairs of straps spaced along the longitudinal opening. Rhorer teaches an elbow pad with upper and lower adjustable straps or closures. The Rhorer pad covers only a portion of the elbow and avoids a wrap around pad, only the adjustable straps encircling the arm to hold the pad in place. Pankers, on the other hand, teaches a fully openable, wrap around elbow protective sleeve. The sleeve is fully openable, along it length, so that the elbow may be placed or positioned in the open protective sleeve and the sleeve is then wrapped around the elbow and closed. These elbow protective bandages or garments each require at least two hands to position the garment or bandage on or about the elbow and to hold in position and close about the elbow and are therefore not installable about the elbow by the person wearing the protective garment.
Examples of tubular or modified tubular construction protective garments are taught in U.S. patent to:
______________________________________ Guttman 3,266,058 1966 Sotherlin 3,322,118 1967 Gaylord, Jr. 3,990,446 1976 Boone 4,150,442 1979 Bloom 4,166,463 1979 Gamm 4,632,106 1986 Detty 5,168,577 1992 Brandt, et al 5,185,000 1993 ______________________________________
Sotherlin teaches a slide-on protective sleeve of stretch material for the heel of the foot or for the elbow, that is of fully closed construction. The stretchable sleeve slides on the extremity, with the whole of the sleeve sliding over some of the surface of the skin of the extremity over which the protective garment is place. The U.S. patents to Guttman; Gaylord, Jr.; Boone; and, Brandt, et al each teach protective bandages or methods for providing protection for an elbow of the arm or a heel of the foot, the protection bandages constructed in the form of a flexible, tubular or modified tubular bandage or garment, which slides on over the part of the body to be protected. The U.S. patents to Gamm and to Detty each teach more rigid, tubular protection bandages having seams removed from the bending points or areas covered by the tubular bandages. The Bloom teaching covers an elastic tubular support for the foot and ankle.
The U.S. Pat. No. 3,406,406 issued to Lutz in 1968 teaches a body joint support showing several different constructions. The full, longitudinally open construction carries the disadvantages of the former group of three (3) U.S. patents set forth above while Lutz also teaches a slide-on construction which carries the disadvantages of other slide-on protection and support bandages, such as those in the latter group of eight (8) U.S. patents set forth above.
Those protective garment or bandages that are of the slide-on type, may be installed on the arm or the leg, using only one hand. This makes the slide-on protective garment more easily installable by the person wearing the protective garment, when it comes to installing or positioning the garment on the arm. However, since the tubular protective garment slides over the area to be protected, this is often undesirable as contact with the surface of the skin of the area to be protected may be a contact to be avoided because of the extreme sensitivity of the area. This is especially true when there has been a damage to the nerve center of the elbow.